Nor Cal FLL has a 2 tier tournament system and the following advancement criteria is used at all tournament levels. The criteria for advancement has not changed – it is based on the Champion’s Award criteria and published by FIRST here.

Teams advance from a tournament based on being Well Rounded FIRST LEGO League teams with good demonstrated FLL Core Values particularly around Gracious Professionalism. Teams that advance will be solid performers in all equally-weighted judging aspects of FIRST LEGO League:

Robot Design

Project Presentation

Core Values

Plus, only teams where the robot performance score meets a minimum threshold or hurdle of all teams at their tournament will advancing (NEW IN 2014: The robot performance hurdle for advancement eligibility will be announced via the norcalfll-announce googlegroup – it is 55%. This is based on rank – ie 1st, 2nd, 3rd).

The percentage of advancing teams will likely vary in each district based on the total number of registered teams in that district.

The overall criteria and process is similar to the Champion’s Award criteria with the expanded definition for robot performance (Champion’s Award is top 40% and Advancement Hurdle for 2014 is 55%)

At a tournament, the judges will rank each team [1 to N] according to its placement in each of the judging categories. The sum of the rank will be used to provide an effective overall rank for the teams – this rank will not be discussed or disclosed – it is only used in the judging process for advancement.

The judges will then deliberate over this ranked list of team to break any ties and produce a list of teams that will advance from that tournament.

Note that it is likely that there will be teams that win awards that do not end up advancing, just as it is possible that a team will advance without winning an award.

Apparently hypothetical is not clear enough… so I am changing this to be a mythical 10-team tournament. Consider the FAKE tournament results presented in the table below.

For example, if the tournament is going to advance 2 teams with a 50% performance hurdle. This means that any of the top 5 teams (5 out of 10 = 50%) – solely based on Robot Game Ranking – are eligible.

For those 5 eligible teams, then, it is all up to the Judges and how they rank the teams as compared only with the teams at that tournament along with Core Values inputs received from volunteer(s).

So, the judges could discuss and would most likely decide to advance teams C, D, or E. They might be heartbroken that team F is not eligible as that is their “best overall” from a judging perspective but that team is not eligible based on performance rank.

Note that this could mean that C and/or D might advance despite not having won an individual award and without having placed better than 2nd (or 3rd) in any judging area. [Most likely though, team C would win Champion’s Award.] It would also mean that team F would win a core award for Project but would not advance. And it would mean that team A would win the robot performance award and not advance.

The only information that is made public to anyone beyond the judges is : Robot Game Rank, Award Winners and Advancing Teams. None of the Judge ranks are made public per FIRST requirements.

Team

Robot Game Team Rank

Design Judging Rank

Project Judging Rank

Core Values Judging Rank

JudgingOverall

Public

Not disclosed

A

1

First, get list of eliglble teams based on rank, then look at judging eval

4

4

8

16

B

2

1

9

6

16

C

3

2

2

7

11

D

4

6

3

3

12

E

5

5

6

1

12

F

6

3

1

2

not eligible to advance

G

7

8

5

5

H

8

9

7

4

I

9

10

8

10

J

10

7

10

9

Skipping, either directly or indirectly, any of the aspects of the FLL program would make the team ineligible for any of the Core Awards including performance as well as ineligible to advance.

A Final note: FLL Core Values are a part of all judged awards. Teams (and their support crew of parents, friends, mentors, coaches, etc) observed by the judges and tournament observers and other volunteers to be showing poor FLL Core Values may find that the team is penalized. Judges can and do disqualify a team from advancing or winning any core award (including robot performance) due to poor demonstration of the FLL Core Values.

This may includes situations where the judges determine that the coaches/mentors have had too active a role in the team’s activities; essentially seeing that the work is not that of the kids.